


Ragnarok

by amberfox17



Category: Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Gen, Mild Gore, Mythology - Freeform, Ragnarok, References to Norse Religion & Lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-30
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2018-01-03 01:26:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1064039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberfox17/pseuds/amberfox17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quiet moment between Thor and Loki, at the very end. An MCU/Myth mashup based on solitan's beautiful art. Can be read as gen or slash, as you prefer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ragnarok

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Fight You Next](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/31500) by thorki-smut. 



> Based on [soltian's beautiful art](http://soltian.tumblr.com/post/27464659038/against-the-serpent-goes-othins-son-in-anger) (you need to see this before reading).

“I suppose I must fight you next,” Thor says, smiling through the blood that froths on his lips, struggling to form the words between short, shallow breaths punctuated by a horrific sucking noise from the wounds in his chest and throat.

“Yes,” Loki replies, tightening his grip on Thor’s hands, the skin clammy and cold beneath the sticky, viscous blood of the serpent lying a bare nine paces away. Jörmungandr is dead, his jaw shattered and eyes dull, but even now his black, toxic venom pulses slowly from the broken remains of his fangs, stains the earth with foulness and corruption.

Thor is coated in the stuff, the sickly-sweet scent of poison mingling with the coppery stench of their blood. Loki’s son has managed what Loki never could: as Loki buries his face in Thor’s bright golden hair he can smell his impending death, can see, in the corners of his vision, the flickering of raven’s wings and can hear the howls of the wolves hungry to feed on god-flesh.

There are no Valkyries waiting to take his brother to Valhalla; nor has Hela come to claim the soul of her serpentine brother for her cold realm. This is the end of days, the last battle, and both the dead and their masters have already fought and fallen beneath the burning sky. Only darkness and silence waits for Thor now, and all of Loki’s children have already vanished into that great void.

Loki should be furious, should be filled with rage at the loss of his children, should have already cut Thor’s throat. Loki should be gleeful, should be dancing with joy over the bodies of the Aesir, laughing at the corpses of his not-father, not-friends and, in but a few heartbeats, the body of his not-brother. Loki should be frantic, should be cursing his fate and his own twisted heart, should be wasting what little of his seidr remains trying to heal Thor’s fatal wounds, pleading for him to stay.

Loki does none of these things. Loki kisses Thor’s hair and lets the tears fall, holds Thor as tightly as he can so his dying brother knows that he is here, that he will not leave him. He quiets his mind, pushes away the tangle of emotions and memories that always swamp him when he is with Thor. He concentrates solely on the weight of Thor against him, the sheer physical reality of Thor’s body against his, and spreads a thin, flickering web of seidr over Thor’s form to dull his pain, to offer what little comfort he can in these last moments together.

Thor will be dead in nine heartbeats. Loki knows this, just as he knows that once it happens, once Thor breathes his last breath in Loki’s arms Loki will break, will shatter into something even sharper and more vicious than what he has become. Foresight was never one of his gifts, before, but in his long imprisonment in the cave, another serpent’s venom eating away his eyes, his face, his sanity, another child’s body a cage to keep him bound, he learnt how to dream in prophecy, how to seize slivers of the future from the shadows of his madness, and he knows how this will end.

Even now, Heimdall, ever-faithful, ever-loyal, is fighting his way to his lord’s side, and when he sees Thor here, dead at Loki’s feet, he will bellow his loss to the uncaring heavens and come for Loki. Loki will fight, mad and blind and vicious in his grief, and he and the equally stricken Gatekeeper will kill each other as the world burns and falls into the sea, a last act of violence and hate as everything ends.

He has seen whispers, fragments, of a future beyond this end, of a new, green world born from the death-throws of everything Loki has ever known. But he cannot know if this is a true seeing, or a delusion born of his pain and suffering, and even if it does come to be, that new world will have no room for him, nor Thor. Yet he cannot stop it, just as he could not turn from the path that led him here, to this blood-soaked battlefield and Thor in his arms, breaths slowing, life fading.

 _Wyrd bið ful aræd_.

“But not just yet,” Loki says, and Thor’s stiff fingers squeeze weakly, the gentlest of pressure around his hands, and they sit together, quietly, peacefully, as the stars fall like tears from the shattering sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Wyrd bið ful aræd - Fate remains wholly inexorable  
> From [The Wanderer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wanderer_%28poem%29), an Anglo-Saxon poem, probably from the 9th century, but possibly from as early as the 6th. No, it's not Norse, but it's a similar sentiment, and The Wanderer is a beautiful, crytic piece on loss and fate and faith.


End file.
